Employers can ban staff from wearing headscarves, European court rules

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Employers may bar staff from wearing visible religious symbols, the EU’s highest court has ruled in its first decision on the issue of women wearing Islamic headscarves at work. But customers cannot simply demand that workers remove headscarves if the company has no policy barring religious symbols, the court ruled on Tuesday.On the eve of a Dutch election in which Muslim immigration has been a key issue and a bellwether for attitudes to migration and refugee policies across Europe, the European court of justice (ECJ) gave a joint judgment in the cases of two women, in France and Belgium, who were dismissed for refusing to remove headscarves.(The guardian)…[+]